My first experience with G&S was in highschool, with "Pirates of Penzance. Everyone cooperated, students, teachers, parents, and volunteers (more like coerced labor). The town was small, just the one public high school. We gave 3 performances to a packed auditorium. At least one of the students, who learned to handle the lighting, etc., later went on to technical work for one of the California studios.

My next experience was in graduate school. Each of us was assigned a room (office) in a row of old decrepit houses that the school was planning to demolish and replace with some new building. Next door to me was a scholarship student from England who had a record player and a large collection of G&S LPs. Other students in the building commiserated with me, but I grew to enjoy it.
I still have several scratchy old sets of G&S on LP.

I am trying to find a dvd of La Periclore, but it was withdrawn, and no luck so far. It's another one in which everything looks tragic but somehow ends happily.